Yes, I’m boring you again with another one of my mini-makeover projects. This time I attacked the family room side table situation. All of the furniture in this space was from the den at our last home.

It is casual and can take a hit without showing much wear and tear. While that is ideal for our new life as parents to a two-year-old, we are pretty tired of looking at these pieces. I would love to buy new furniture and move all of this up to the playroom/media room/exercise room/man cave, but that is just not in the budget right now. However, a side table is one expense we figured we could make room for, and it would make sitting at the end of the couch so much nicer since one would then have a place to set one’s drink, etc.. For the last year or so I have been hunting down at least one side table for the other end of the couch.

What is amazing is that in all this time I have not come up with ANYTHING! I find little tables every where, but this search has yielded only those with unattractive wood tones, that are too short or just completely wrong with the style of the rest of the pieces. It’s been a surprising journey for someone that can usually make-do and make it work with whatever I find.

While looking around the space the other day I took notice of the woven sea grass storage ottomans that live under the side table along the walkway from the powder room, laundry area and garage entrance into the family room.

In the den at our old house the couch sat in the middle of the room, forming a walkway through that space, and what we now use as a side table was used as a “sofa” table to help with the flow. The ottomans lived under the sofa table then too. Not until we did some staging to sell our home did the ottomans come out from under the sofa table to be used as seats at our “game” table.

(Realty shot above courtesy of Remax Elite, Nashville, TN. You can see the sofa table is behind the sofa, duh! And, you can just see the ottoman to the left of the shot at the game table.)

(Here is the same area from the opposite wall.)

As soon as we moved they went right back under the side table, only to be used as blanket storage and the occasional extra seat. I realized that these guys had not been living up to their potential and needed to be pulled out and into the room.

I now had the perfect (for now) side tables for the couch without spending a dime. Plus, accessing the blankets inside just got a little easier.

This area is feeling kind of naked right now, but I am sure I will come up with something to fill that space soon enough! The only problem I foresee right now is that someone (I won’t name, names, but he is the father of my child) will most likely set an ice-filled drink down and create a ring, or something worse (I imagine dried sea grass can get really moldy if under a wet glass regularly). So, I am now on the hunt for some neat trays to act as table tops. I’m leaning toward fun painted picture frames with some kind of patterned insert and attached handles.

I think this means I need to get back on the thrifting bandwagon ASAP!

Kitsch Krafts

PS- Let’s just not even talk about the rest of the décor of this room. I am the first to admit it’s all atrocious and needs updating, but this is where we are for now.